


ella & mr. carlyle

by AlmondRose



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fae Rules, Fantasy, Gen, Original Characters - Freeform, Original work - Freeform, Spells & Enchantments, fae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 17:46:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13839843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmondRose/pseuds/AlmondRose
Summary: ella's bored and looking for an adventure. the forest is out-of-bounds and mysterious. what's a teenage girl to do?





	ella & mr. carlyle

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this a little while ago, then got a nasty comment & deleted it, but it's back again!!!i i hope you enjoy & that this time it goes over better than last time lol

1.

 

Ella moves to a quiet neighborhood in a quiet town. Her house is at the back of the cul-de-sac, and there’s a forest behind her house. 

 

It’s a big forest, and nobody really goes in it. Ella assumes, since there’s a fence between her backyard and the vast stretch of trees behind it, that she’s not supposed to go in it. 

 

She really wants to, anyway. 

 

When it’s summer and Ella has nothing to do except stare out the window or go to the library, she goes out into the backyard and stares at the fence between herself and the trees, and she reaches out and holds on to it. 

 

She wonders if she could climb it. 

 

Mostly out of curiosity, Ella pulls herself up, climbing up about a foot. She looks down and goes farther. 

 

Ella’s at the top of the fence before she even really thinks about it, and she blinks and looks around, considering. 

 

_ There’s nobody to tell you no,  _ a voice in her head whispers, and Ella stares out into the trees. They seem to call to her, to draw her closer. 

 

She casts another look at her house and turns back to the woods, throwing her legs around the top of the fence. Ella pulls herself over and climbs down about halfway before jumping down, her feet hitting the grass with a dull thud. 

 

For a second, everything is wobbly and strange, then the world rights itself and Ella blinks out into the forest. 

 

The trees are widely spaced and open, with sunlight streaming between them and it’s so close and real. 

 

Ella looks back at her house, with the fence between her, her house, and the forest, but now she’s on the other side. 

 

A grin spreads across her face and she turns back into the woods, taking a step forward. She goes further, walking in a straight line and hopping on a fallen log to walk on it. 

 

The trees are bright and beautiful, and Ella wants to have an adventure. 

 

She’s not sure how to go about it, but she want an adventure so badly her heart aches at the thought of it. 

 

She goes a little deeper into the woods. 

 

Ella stands on a stump, and flings her arms out wide. She is alone, the only person in this whole, wide forest, and she wants to scream it. 

 

She’s too afraid, in case she’s not alone, but she stands with her arms flung out wide, and someone steps out of the shadows. 

 

It is a man, probably early twenties. He blinks at her, and every movement he makes seems to leave an imprint of shadow behind him. He takes a few steps closer to Ella, and he trails a row of shadows behind him. 

 

Ella puts her arms down, but she’s not afraid. 

 

“Who are you?” she asks, and the man doesn’t answer her. He tilts his head, and blinks again, his eyes a dark shadowy blur. 

 

“Your mom will be back soon,” he says, and his voice sounds ordinary but like nothing Ella’s ever heard before. “You should go home.”

 

“Okay,” Ella says, and she jumps from the stump, feeling a little silly. “Thank you.”

 

The man nods, and steps back into the shadows, vanishing. 

 

Ella turns back the way she came, and it is easy to return home, but nearly impossible to climb up the fence. 

 

She does anyway, and she jumps back into her yard just as she hears a car pull up in the driveway. 

 

Ella manages to get back into the house before her mom comes inside. 

 

2.

 

The next day is Saturday, so Ella doesn’t go back out. She waits ‘till Monday before she climbs the fence again, this time when she first wakes up so she can have more time. 

 

Once again when she lands on the forest floor, there’s a moment of dizziness before the world rights itself and Ella feels like she’s landed in a place of clarity, where mysteries are solved and only good happens. 

 

She adjusts her backpack and she marches forward. 

 

The morning is warm, and the woods are bright and welcoming. Ella wonders if she’ll see the man again, the one with the shadows all around him. 

 

She’s not sure if she wants to or not. 

 

She presses on, looking at the trees and the grass and the little animals that scamper around. A squirrel sits on the ground in front of her, and Ella stops to watch. 

 

It turns its head to look at her, and then runs off the path. For the first time, Ella notices that the squirrel looks...odd. It’s like the air around it has melted all around it, and the squirrel stands out differently, or something. Ella turns to peek at a bird up in a tree, and it’s sort of the same. It’s as if the animals are fake, or maybe as if the forest is. 

 

A chill settles through Ella’s bones, and for the first time she thinks that maybe being in the forest was not a good idea after all. She takes an involuntary step back, and thinks that it might be time to go home. 

 

“Who are you?” a voice asks, all of a sudden, and she turns to see a boy, younger than her most probably. He takes a step towards her and shadows trail behind him. 

 

“Who are  _ you?”  _ Ella returns. “What are you doing here?” The boy shrugs.

 

“I live here,” he says. “This is my forest.”

 

“Yours exclusively?” Ella asks. “You own it?”

 

“No,” the boy scowls. “But  _ you  _ don’t.”

 

“I’m allowed to visit, aren’t I?” Ella says, and the boy crosses his arms. 

 

“Wasn’t there a fence?” he asks, and Ella feels sheepish. 

 

“Nobody said I couldn’t come here,” Ella says. “And even  _ you  _ can’t’ve been in this forest forever.”

 

“I can too,” the boy says, and he sticks his tongue out and vanishes.

 

Ella blinks in surprise, then she muttered, “Whatever. I’m going home,” and she turns away. 

 

She starts off to where she thinks her house is, but she stumbles onto a field of flowers that she  _ definitely  _ hasn’t been in before. 

 

“Um,” Ella says, feeling uneasy, and something touches her shoulder. Ella whirls around, and the same boy from before is there. 

 

“Come on,” he says, and he grabs her shirt and pulls her from the flowery field. She yanks her shirt from his hands, but follows him through the trees and to the fence. 

 

“There,” he says, then he leaves before Ella can thank him. She stares out to the spot where he might’ve been, and she knows she’s going to have to come back.

 

3.

 

 

There is a house, in the middle of the forest. It’s big, and old, and there’s a wide iron fence all around it, with a gate locked by time and key. 

 

There’s a dirt path that leads up to the house, and the grounds are overgrown and wild. 

 

Ella stares up at the house, between her and a fence, and Ella isn’t deterred by fences. 

 

She grabs onto the vines, creeping up the iron bars, and she climbs up. It’s a harder climb than the one to enter the forest, but Ella perseveres. 

 

She swings her legs over the side of the gate, and she slides down to the ground, awkwardly and painfully. 

  
Landing is like she’s breathed in fresh air, or taken a sip of cold water on a hot day; Ella’s mind feels sharper and she feels  _ better _ even though she hadn’t realized anything was wrong. 

 

She gets up and ignores her sore butt, and instead wades through the overgrown grass and onto the barely-visible path up to the front steps of the house--or maybe mansion, Ella thinks, as she stares up at it. 

 

It’s almost certainly abandoned, and Ella’s converse echo on the marble steps as she goes up them. The door is unlocked, and the first room in the house is dusty and big, grand without sparkle. 

 

Ella is certain she is alone but also certain that something tragic has happened here. The whole mansion reeks of sadness and melancholy. 

 

She takes a step into the house, and the door swings shut behind her, creaking loudly. 

 

Footsteps sound from somewhere within the building, and a voice calls, “Luke?” The voice sounds male and so hopeful it makes Ella’s heart ache. 

 

“Jenny?” the voice calls again, and at the top of the stairs a man appears. Ella would call him about sixty, probably younger, and he has hope written all over his face. The hope vanishes when he sees her, and Ella feels like a monster. 

 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t know any Luke or Jenny.”

 

“What’re you doing here?” the man asks, sagging to the ground. 

 

“I-I was wandering the forest, and I came across this house--I thought it was abandoned, I’m sorry--”

 

“It’s fine,” the man says. “I don’t get much company anymore, anyhow.”

 

“You’re in the middle of the forest,” Ella says, and she thinks about the people she’s seen within these trees. She wonders if they ever come visit him. 

 

“Yes,” the man says, his eyes narrowing. “Speaking of, what’re you doin’ in the forest, anyway? Shouldn’t you be in school?”

 

“It’s summer,” Ella says, bewildered. “Sir, do you have any contact with the outside world?”

 

“Not really,” the man mutters, looking aside. “Only ol’ Johnson ever comes by anymore, about once a month with the food.”

 

“Oh,” Ella says. “Then who are Luke and Jenny?”

 

“Never mind them,” the man says, and he stands up from his spot at the top of the stairs, heading down them. “Do you want some tea?”

 

Ella considers, and she’s smart, or at least she likes to think she is, so she knows that accepting tea from a stranger in a house in the woods is  _ probably  _ a bad idea. But this man seems lonely--and mostly harmless, and Ella thinks that if worst comes to worst, she’s probably in better shape than this man, and if she gets lost in the woods, well, the forest people will help her. 

 

She hopes. 

 

She nods and says, “Sure,” and follows him to the kitchen. It’s less dusty than the rest of the house, and Ella wonders if there’s a passage somewhere to lead him down to the kitchen without going by the door. 

 

“My name is Clarence Carlyle,” the man says as he clatters around the kitchen while Ella sits at the table. 

 

“Ella,” she says. 

 

“Ella,” Mr. Carlyle repeats. “That’s a nice name.”

 

“Thanks,” Ella says. She pauses. “Have you met the forest people?

 

“Have  _ you?”  _ Mr. Carlyle asks, whirling around to face her. Ella nods, mutely. “Stay away from them, you hear me?”

 

Ella nods frantically, alarmed at his change in behavior. 

 

“Those forest people are good for  _ nothing,”  _ Mr. Carlyle says. “All they do is take.” His anger seems to fade, and he stares down at his hands. “What am I  _ doin’,  _ offering you  _ tea _ .”

 

“I don’t mind,” Ella says. “What are they, the forest people? They don’t seem greedy.”

 

“They are,” Mr. Carlyle says bitterly. “Don’t let them see anything you love, because they’ll take it all away.”

 

4.

 

Ella leaves Mr. Carlyle’s house feeling confused. He apologizes for the locked gate, but doesn’t offer to open it for her, so she has to climb back over the fence. 

 

On her way in, she’d tied ribbons to the trees, and she looks for the last one, which she’d tied to the closest tree to Mr. Carlyle’s house, but she can’t find it. 

 

Ella circles the whole house, then goes into the woods where she thinks she came from, and there’s no ribbons to be found. 

 

“Great,” she mutters, and she digs a compass out of her backpack. She knows she had been heading east, and the needle spins in circles. Ella shakes it and the spinning reverses. 

 

“Fabulous,” Ella says, and she turns to go back to Mr. Carlyle’s, but she takes two steps forward before she knows that she’s not anywhere she’s been before. 

 

“Are you lost?” a whispery voice asks, and Ella turns to see a girl with long hair that’s probably around Ella’s age. The girl, of course, has shadows trailing behind her, and her hair is sort of floaty. 

 

“Yes,” Ella admits, and the girl holds out her hand. Ella takes it. 

 

She thinks that Mr. Carlyle said something about the forest people, but she can’t quite remember. 

 

The girl’s hand is warm, like she has a fever, but Ella’s not sure if sickness is even real. The girl drags her along, and Ella says, “What’s your name?”

 

The girl glances back at her and says, “I used to have one.”

 

With that, the girl releases her hand and points. 

 

“Beyond those trees is your home,” she says, and Ella takes a step forward before turning back to the other girl. 

 

She’s gone. 

 

Ella goes through the trees and the fence is right there. She looks back to the trees, and a different girl is there. 

 

The other girl holds out her hands, and offers her a pile of orange ribbons--the ones Ella had tied to the trees to find her way home. 

 

“Thanks,” Ella says, and the girl nods and hands the ribbons to Ella, vanishing the second the ribbons leave her hands. 

 

Ella ties a ribbon to a tree right outside the fence before she climbs over. 

 

5.

 

The next day, the ribbon is gone.

 

6.

  
  


“Where are you going?” a familiar voice asks and the boy from the other day--the young one, the one who claimed ownership to the forest--appears next to Ella. 

 

“I,” she says, pushing a bush aside, “am looking for the mansion.”

 

“What mansion?” the boy asks. 

 

“The one in the middle of the forest. Mr. Carlyle’s mansion.”

 

“Oh. Carlyle,” the boy says, and he says it softly. Ella turns to look at him, her ponytail swinging behind her head. 

 

“You know him?”

 

“Everyone does,” the boy says. 

 

“He said something about you, you know,” Ella says. “The forest people.”

 

“What did he say?”

 

“I don’t remember,” Ella admits. “I think it was a warning, though.”

 

“Probably,” the boy says. “Carlyle is hopelessly bitter.”

 

“What’s your name?” Ella asks. The boy frowns. 

 

“I don’t have one anymore,” he says. 

 

“Of course you don’t,” Ella says, sighing, then she says, “Can you take me to the Carlyle Mansion?”

 

“Why would I do that?” the boy says. He smirks. “You’re already there.”

 

He disappears and in a gap between two trees that used to be behind him, Ella can see the iron gates surrounding the mansion. 

  
7. 

 

When Ella lands on the grounds of the mansion, she remembers all of a sudden what Mr. Carlyle had told her. 

 

_ Stay away from the forest people.  _

 

How could she have forgotten?

 

Ella shakes herself and runs up the steps, knocking on the door. After a few seconds, the door opens and Mr. Carlyle raises an eyebrow at her. 

 

“I thought you were gonna stay away from the forest?” he says, and Ella shrugs. 

 

“I meant to,” she says, “but it didn’t work out.”

 

“Ach,” he says, and he lets her in. “Kids.”

 

“Something wrong with that?” Ella asks, grinning, and Mr. Carlyle says, “No, not at all.” He leads her to the kitchen again, and Ella says, “But something weird happened.”

 

“Like what?” Mr. Carlyle asks, starting to get out the tea. 

 

“I forgot your advice,” Ella says. “For the life of me, I couldn’t remember that I was supposed to stay away from the forest people. I only remembered when I got past the gates, just now.”

 

Mr. Carlyle sighs, heavily. 

 

“I knew this would happen,” he says, and he turns to her. “Stayin’ in the forest will only bring you harm, you hear me?”

 

“How?” Ella says. “How can the forest hurt me?”

 

“It’ll take you, Ella,” Mr. Carlyle says. “Those trees and those people will take you and never let you go.”

 

“I don’t understand,” Ella says, pleads. “What does that mean?”

 

“Just promise me you won’t decide to stay forever. Promise me.”

 

“Oh,” Ella says, and she stares at the table in front of her. “I’m not gonna move into the forest.”

 

“That’s what they said, too,” Mr. Carlyle says, and he laughs, bitterly.

 

8.  
  


That night, Ella goes out in her backyard and looks out at the forest. In the dark, the trees look menacing and terrifying. 

 

Ella takes a step back, and the trees cast shadows around her. Ella decides, resoutly, that she will not be going in there at night. 

 

Something glints from within the trees, and moves closer to her. It’s a set of eyes--human eyes--and Ella can see the dim outline of a person, standing in the dark. 

 

Ella’s not a coward, she swears she’s not, but--just this once--she turns and runs back home.

 

9.    
  


Ella climbs over the fence and wanders into the woods, paying no attention to direction or navigation at all, in any way. At some point the trees shift and become dark, and roots grow under her feet while the branches grow twisty, and a chill settles in her bones. 

 

“Come,” a voice says, and someone appears next to her. 

 

“Join us,” another voice says, and someone else is on her other side. 

 

“What’s your name?” a third person says, and Ella opens her mouth--although she knows better than to tell her name--and something grabs Ella’s shirt and drags her from behind back into the place where trees grow far apart and light streams down between them. 

 

“W-what,” Ella gasps, and the thing releases her. 

 

“Would you  _ not  _ go back there?” a familiar voice says, and it’s the boy who’s younger than her, the one who told her he owned the forest and took her to Mr. Carlyle’s house the second time. 

 

“I won’t,” Ella says, and the boy says, “They might make you stay, if you do.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Ella says, and the boy--Ella knows better to give him a name, to nickname him, so she mentally dubs him the owner, and decides to refer to him by that--crosses his arms. 

 

“It’s fine,” he says. “You should be fine, if you don’t  _ do  _ that again.”

 

“I didn’t know,” Ella says. 

 

“You have to have intent, in here,” the owner says. “Or else you’ll end up lost and you won’t find your way back.”

 

“I understand,” Ella says. “Can we please talk about something else?”

 

“Fine,” the owner says, and then he steps aside. “Carlyle’s mansion is between those trees, and the fence is beyond that bush.”

 

“Thank you,” Ella says, and the owner makes a face before he vanishes. 

 

He’s strange, Ella thinks, and she doesn’t know where she wants to go. The chill lessons from her heart, and Ella crosses the clearing to go between the trees and to the mansion. 

 

She scales the fence and slides down. The air is cold and clean and Ella sits on the ground, under a overgrown bush, and she doesn’t move for a long time. 

 

“You all right?” a voice asks, and Ella looks up. 

 

A man about Mr. Carlyle’s age stands there, wearing a battered baseball cap and overalls, his hands in his pockets. 

 

“Fine,” Ella says, and the man rocks on his heels. 

 

“If you say so,” he says, easily, and he goes over to the fence. “If you need anything, Carlyle’ll help you.”

 

“I know,” Ella says, and the man nods. He opens up a small door in the fence that Ella’d never noticed before. Her mouth falls open and she crawls over to see a forest person on the other side. 

 

“Are you ready?” the forest guy asks, and the other guy--the one who Ella is sure is fully normal--nods and they leave together, the door in the fence swinging shut behind them.

 

10.  
  


 

“Why don’t you ever leave?” Ella asks, tilting her head and swinging her legs. “You obviously don’t like it here.”

 

“I have my reasons,” Mr. Carlyle says, gruffly, and Ella doesn’t want to pry. 

 

“Who was that, yesterday?” she asks. “The other man.”

 

“Johnson, with the food,” he says, and Ella nods. 

 

“How does he know how to find you?” she asks, and Mr. Carlyle says, “The people guide him here. That’s the only way, unless he wants to be wandering around here forever.”

 

“So you’re stuck in here? You couldn’t leave to go get food yourself?”

 

“I don’t know,” Mr. Carlyle says. “I’ve never tried.”

 

“You’ve got to!” Ella cries. “You should see the real world!”

 

“I don’t know,” he says, and his voice is tired. “I can’t afford to lose it all. Besides, how would I climb over that fence?”

 

“I would help you,” Ella says. 

 

“I’m sure you would,” he says. “But it’s just not possible.”

 

“Fine,” Ella says. “I’ll figure it out myself.”   
  


11. 

 

“Why don’t you ever leave?” Ella asks, tilting her head. 

 

“I can’t,” the girl says, shrugging. “This is my home.”

 

“But what about before it was your home?” Ella asks, and the girl says, “I don’t know.”

 

“I don’t understand,” Ella says. “Where’s your parents? I’ve never seen a forest person older than twenty-five. You can’t’ve been born here.”

 

“Parents,” the girl says, wonder in her voice. She turns to Ella, and Ella’s surprised to see her eyes glistening with tears. “I don’t know when I saw my parents last.”

 

The tears flow down her face and they look like liquid gold sliding down her cheeks. Ella opens her arms and the girl falls into them, shadows embracing them both and Ella feels heavy beyond belief. 

 

When the girl steps away, there’s sparkly tears staining Ella’s shirt and the girl wipes her sleeve across her face. 

 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to.”

 

“I don’t mind,” Ella says, and the girl with the golden tears nods, satisfied. “Why haven’t you seen your parents?”

 

“I don’t know,” the girl says. “The forest is my home.” 

 

She turns around and fades away. Ella reaches her hand out to stop her, calling “Wait!”, but the girl doesn’t stop. 

 

Ella does, however, notice her hand. It’s glowing with a faint yellow light, and when Ella moves it, a trail of shadows lingers behind. 

 

“You have to be more careful,” a familiar voice says, and Ella doesn’t look away from her hand. 

 

“I don’t even know what I’m doing wrong,” she confesses, and the owner steps around her and picks up her hand, inspecting it. 

 

“You’re doing a poor job of staying away from these trees,” the owner says, his voice flat. 

 

“Do you know what a glowing hand means?” she asks, and the owner says, “Last time I saw glowing, it was on myself.”

 

“What?”

 

“I started glowing before I came to stay here,” the owner says. “So does everyone. The more you glow, the less likely you are to leave.”

 

12. 

 

When Ella climbs back over the fence, the glow from her hand is gone and Ella stares at it for a minute before she runs inside and up to her room. 

 

She boots up her computer and googles the forest. 

 

Disappearance cases and claims that the woods are haunted are the first few articles to come up. Ella clicks on the first disappearance case and there’s a picture of a wide-eyed seventeen year old girl named Sara McTaggart who vanished last year. The article talks about how her parents are distraught and haven’t been able to find her anywhere. 

 

Ella squints at Sara McTaggart’s picture and she thinks she recognizes her. Has Ella seen her, in the forest?

 

She exits that article and clicks on the next one down. It’s another missing person, a boy named Jeremy Zabe.

 

He’s fourteen, or he was three years ago, and the article says that his parents want him home and his dog misses him and when the reporter interviewed his parents they cried the whole time. 

 

His picture is below the article, a smiling boy with his dog, and Ella recognizes him with a start.

 

It’s the owner, the boy who said he owned the forest and he said he glowed and he looks younger than Ella although if he was fourteen three years ago then they’re about the same age. 

 

In the owner’s--Jeremy’s--picture he looks healthy and full of life and Ella hadn’t realized how devoid of color he was, in the woods, until she looks at his picture. 

 

Her chest aches and she prints the article. 

 

She closes out the tab and runs downstairs to the printer to gather the article, and the garage door opens and by the time Ella’s mom comes inside, Ella’s tucked the article away in her backpack. 

 

“Hey, Ells,” she says, tiredly. She reaches out and ruffles Ella’s hair. “Did you have a good day?”

 

“Yeah,” Ella says. “I watched more TV. Do you think I should start working on my summer homework?”

 

“No,” her mom says, and Ella wasn’t expecting that. “There are some changes happening at work, and--I don’t know. Just hold off a little, okay?”

 

“Okay,” Ella says, uncertainty, and her mom smiles. 

 

“What do you say we order pizza and have a movie night tonight, hm?” she asks, and Ella nods, excited. 

 

“Let me put my stuff back upstairs,” she says, and she runs upstairs, leaving her backpack on her bed. 

 

Ella looks at her hand, and back at the woods, and at her computer, and she resolves to forget about the forest, just for tonight. 

 

  
13. 

 

Ella swings her legs over the fence and jumps down. Dizziness overwhelms her for a second, then it clears and Ella peeks at her hand. 

  
It’s glowing again. 

 

She vows to ignore it, and she adjusts her backpack and marches in. 

 

The girl with the golden tears appears, and she says, “Who are you looking for?”

 

Ella hesitates. 

 

“I don’t know how to describe him,” she says. 

 

“Is it the one who hangs out with you?” the girl with the golden tears asks, and Ella nods. 

 

“He’s probably over there,” the girl says, and she sidesteps and points her thumb over her shoulder.

 

A clearing full of reddish flowers is behind her, and Ella nods her gratitude and walks around her. 

 

“Why would you look for me?” the owner says, out of nowhere. Ella jumps and then when he starts to laugh she takes out the article from her backpack.

 

“What’s that?” he asks, and she hands it to him. 

 

He takes it, looks at it, then the paper turns to ash in his hands. 

 

“W-what--” Ella starts, and he looks up, his eyes pure black. Ella takes a few stumbling steps backwards, and she bumps into a wall or a tree behind her. She stays against it, and the owner takes a step toward her. 

 

“Names have power here,” he says. “Why would you bring mine?”

 

“I didn’t--I didn’t know,” Ella says, and he says, “I don’t know  _ your  _ name; why can you know mine?”

 

Ella doesn’t think he’s trying to be scary, but his eyes--they’re freaking her out, so she turns and notes what, exactly, the wall is that she’s pinned against, and she grabs the vines hanging over the side of the fence and hoists herself up and scales the fence, landing in Mr. Carlyle’s yard with a thump. 

 

“Oh, Jeremy,” she says, once she’s safe on the grounds, and from the other side of the fence, Jeremy Zabe’s eyes are still black, and he’s crying golden tears. 

 

14. 

 

“You should be getting home, now,” Mr. Carlyle says, and Ella’s arms fold across her chest. 

 

“I don’t--” she says, then she bites her lip and stops. “I messed up.”

 

“What’d you do?” Mr. Carlyle says, and Ella whispers, “I figured out a name.”

 

“A name?” Mr. Carlyle asks, and Ella nods. 

 

They’re in his family room, which smells like dust and looks like a grandma’s house. Ella has not said this out loud. 

 

“I figured out one of the forest people’s names,” she says. “And now--he’s mad at me.”

 

“What does knowing their names mean?” Mr. Carlyle asks, and Ella’d thought he knew. 

 

“I’m not sure,” she says. “But names have power in the woods. It’s a fae thing.”

 

“Hmm,” Mr. Carlyle says, and he sips his tea thoughtfully. Ella looks down at her own mug, and her tea is cold. 

 

15. 

 

“Ella!” her mom says when she pushes open the door. “Where were you?”

 

“Library,” Ella says, and she wishes she didn’t have to lie. Her mom pulls her into a hug and Ella breathes her in. 

 

She doesn’t want to have to live in the forest forever. 

 

It’s harder and harder to leave, and Ella itches to go back whenever she’s not there. She hates it. 

 

“Next time leave a note, okay?” her mom says into Ella’s hair, and she nods, her face squished by her mom’s shoulder. “I don’t like this town,” her mom mutters. 

 

“Yeah,” Ella says, and her mom releases her. “Can I go upstairs?”

 

“Go,” her mom says, pushing her to the stairs. “I’ll start on dinner.”

 

“Okay!” Ella says, and she runs up, taking the steps two at a time.

 

She slides into her desk and searches up the forest again, this time adding “missing kids” to her search engine. 

 

She opens a word document in the next tab, and she writes down every missing kid she sees. 

 

Sara McTaggart.

Jeremy Zabe. 

Cassidy-Anne Martinez.

Samuel Kim.

Mina Dixon.

Walid Jones. 

Stefanie Hernandez. 

Alex Rosenthal. 

 

That’s a lot, Ella notes when she thinks she’s found them all. Eight missing kids. Eight parents who haven’t seen their kids in years, who think their kids are dead. 

 

Ella wonders how she can save them. 

 

She moves to close out the tab, then she reconsiders. 

 

Ella goes to google and types in  _ CLARENCE CARLYLE _ , her finger dancing over the enter key before Ella takes a deep breath and clicks. 

 

The first thing that comes up is an article on an archive of the local newspaper. Ella clicks on it, and the article is from thirteen years ago.

  
16. 

 

_ MISSING CHILDREN: LUKE AND JENNY CARLYLE _

 

_ On Tuesday, August 9, 2005, Luke and Jenny Carlyle were reported missing from their home. Their father reports that they had gone on a walk, and did not return home after. Luke, 19, has black hair and dark brown eyes. He’s 5 feet, 9 inches tall and was last seen in a yellow hoodie. Jenny, 15, has long curly black hair and dark brown eyes. She is 5 feet, 6 inches and was last seen in overalls with a pink shirt underneath. Her hair was in two braids. Both teenagers are African American, and their father offers a great reward if found. He has a message to add: Luke and Jenny, if you’re out there, please come home. I miss you very much and I know you are trying to return home as soon as possible. I love you both so much.  _   
  


17. 

 

Ella closes the tab in shock. 

 

“Oh,” she whispers, and she wipes a tear from her eye. “Oh.”

 

She spins around in her chair and stares across her room. 

 

She’d vowed to never go into the forest at night, but desperate times call for desperate measures. 

 

Ella arms herself with a flashlight and she grabs her backpack and runs downstairs, yelling, “I’ll be outside!” and sprinting across her backyard. 

 

Hoisting herself up over the fence is beyond easy, and she lights her flashlight when she recovers from the dizziness. 

 

Ella takes a deep breath and plunges into the trees, waving her flashlight and yelling.

 

“Mr. Carlyle!” she calls. “Mr. Carlyle!”

 

“What’s going on?” the owner asks, appearing from next to her. His face is cast in shadows and Ella can’t tell if his eyes are still black. “Why are you here?”

 

“I think Mr. Carlyle’s gonna do something stupid,” she gasps. “I told him about the names, and--his kids!” 

 

“Jesus,” the owner says. “Okay. Follow me.”

 

This is the first time, Ella thinks, that the owner or any forest person hasn’t manipulated the trees to their will to guide Ella someplace. 

 

She runs after him, keeping her flashlight trained on his back, and they dart around the trees and through the woods until a great, looming shape emerges from the woods and Ella looks up at the Carlyle mansion. 

 

“Do you know if he’s in there?” she asks, and the owner shrugs. 

 

“I can’t go in there,” he says. “It’s not the forest.”

 

“Okay,” Ella says, and she puts her flashlight between her teeth and grabs onto a vine. She tries to pull herself up but her foot misses where she’d thought there was a step, and she slides back down.

 

The trees rattle and Ella feels like her head is stuffed full of cotton. 

 

“What happened?” she asks, and the owner is still. 

 

“Names?” he guesses, and he holds his hand out to Ella. 

 

“Okay,” she says, and she takes it. He pulls her up and they run. 

 

“Mr. Carlyle!” she cries. “Where are you?”

 

They’re running and running and there’s nothing until suddenly Ella runs into someone. 

 

She and Mr. Carlyle both fall to the ground on the collision. 

 

“What’re you doing here?” he asks, and Ella says, “I came to find you! Don’t use their names,  _ please,  _ Mr. Carlyle!”

 

“You don’t understand,” he says, and Ella says, “I know you lost your kids, but please don’t do this!”

 

“You don’t want to mess with the power of names,” Ella says. 

 

“You don’t know what I want to do,” Mr. Carlyle says. “And Luke and Jenny will come  _ home.”  _

 

When he says their names, a ripple goes through the trees and Ella feels like she might faint. 

 

“Stop!” Ella says, and Mr. Carlyle says, “They’re my _ kids _ , I can’t just  _ leave  _ them here, not when I can help them.”

 

Ella says, “Haven’t you read a fairytale? If you tell them your name, then you stay forever. You’ve just sealed your children’s fates in these trees.”

 

Mr. Carlyle sinks to his knees and Ella can’t see his face but she knows he’s crying. 

 

“Then what about mine? Why won’t the forest just take me?” he says. 

 

“I think these trees like younger people,” Ella tries to say, but Mr. Carlyle turns his face to the stars and yells, “My name is Clarence Carlyle!”

 

Another ripple goes through the trees, and Ella scrambles back, turning and running away.    
  


18.

 

She doesn’t get very far before someone grabs her arm. 

 

“Shh, it’s me,” the owner says, before she can scream. “Come on.”

 

They dart around some trees and Ella says, “What about Mr. Carlyle?”

 

“He already belonged to the forest, I think,” the owner says. “I’ve said his name before, and you have, within these trees.”

 

“What’ll happen to him?” 

 

“I don’t know,” the owner says, and they stop running. Ella sees the fence and beyond that, her house. 

 

“You should go,” the owner says. 

 

“I should,” Ella says, and she starts to climb up the fence. It’s so, so hard, like her arms have been coated in lead or something. 

 

She gets a few feet up and turns back to the owner. 

 

He’s gone. 

 

Ella turns back to the fence and she climbs. 

 

It’s hard, but she makes it up and over the fence, and she runs back inside for dinner. 

 

As she runs, she feels lighter and lighter, and Ella wonders if maybe she’s free.    
  


19. 

 

The next morning, Ella goes out to the fence and kicks it. 

 

“What?” the owner asks, coming from the trees immediately. 

 

“Come with me,” she says. “You haven’t been gone that long. Three years is nothing. We could find your parents again and you could go home.”

 

“The forest is my home,” he says, but he sounds tired and weary and Ella doesn’t think he wants it to be anymore. 

 

“Come on,” she says. 

 

“How would I go?” he asks. “How could I?”

 

“Just climb,” Ella says, and his face hardens and he nods. 

 

“I will,” he says, and he puts his hands on the fence. He climbs, slowly but steadily, and he slides over and around and lands on his butt, laughing. Ella pulls him up and he doesn’t have shadows trailing after him anymore, and he has life in his face and color in his cheeks and he grins. 

 

“You good?” she asks, and he smiles, bright and sunny. 

 

“I’m good,” he says, and it sounds like a promise. “I really am.”

 

Ella holds out her hand, and he looks confused. 

 

“Hi,” she says, and she grins. “I’m Ella.”

 

He laughs, and takes her hand. 

 

“Hi Ella,” he says. “I’m Jeremy.”

 

20. 

 

Ella slides into the passenger seat of the car, and Ella’s mom ruffles her hair. 

 

“You good, Ells?” she asks, and Ella nods. 

 

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m good.”

 

“Then let’s go,” her mom says, and they drive away from their house, pulling the moving truck behind them. 

 

“You glad to go?” her mom asks, and Ella looks out the window, where she can see the forest, with the fence behind it. 

 

She thinks about Jeremy, and his parents, and about new adventures somewhere else. 

 

“Yeah,” she says. “I am.”

 

The trees pass by in a blur, and Ella wonders what was up with that forest, anyway. 

 

They stop at a light, and when Ella squints into the trees beyond the fence, she sees three figures, standing there. 

 

Mr. Carlyle is in the middle, with the first forest person Ella’s ever met, the one who led her home the first side, on one side of Mr. Carlyle. And on Mr. Carlyle’s other side, standing with Mr. Carlyle’s arm around her, is the girl with the golden tears. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks SO MUCH for reading!!! i hope you enjoyed & please leave a comment <333


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